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There is, among the middle class and socially "comfortable", a sense of desperation and irony. Cheevers builds the darker side of the new American dream. Although the Westcotts appear to be contented with their middle afluence there is an undercurrent of coldness in their relationship. The two live largely separate lives and Cheevers builds on the facade of their relationship being warm and happy. This irony turns to desperation as the wife attempts to make her marriage sound happy for the radio. Cheevers uses his third person narrator as an authorial stylistic device that makes us consider that perhaps the radio itself is narrating.